Democrats' moves to defund police departments are stronger than their push for impeachment or Medicare-for-all healthcare coverage, after the police-related death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday.
"They are already taking action on it," the California Republican said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "Cities are already doing that. That's the last thing you want to happen and perpetuate the problems more."
Rather than defunding, even more money should be provided for training police, McCarthy said. "We want the very best officers out there (so) we should provide better training and transparency," said McCarthy. "You want accountability, and 99% of all officers believe and put their lives on the line to protect and serve us."
But procedures must be in place to remove the "1% of bad apples," said McCarthy.
He said he does think Republicans and Democrats can come to common ground on racism and police reform, as the problem stretches far.
"There are things that have happened that were not on videotape," McCarthy said."This is a moment in time that people should work together. The George family, they deserve justice and no other family should have to go through this again. To the protesters, they have a right to be heard but do those people who were looting and Antifa individuals, there should be consequences for those actions."
Meanwhile, the United States believes in the "rule of law" that nobody should be judged on the color of their sin, but "nobody should be judged based on the color of their uniform either," said McCarthy. "We should work together in principle to make sure at the end of the day the thing that we have all believed is that we strive for a more perfect union and we can do that. We are Americans. We believe in the ideas of what created our nation. We can strive to perfect those and this is our moment in time to do it."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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